The Russian President said that the country cannot allow too much dependence on foreign artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The development of the system must be controlled by Russian manufacturers. Olga Uskova, president of the Cognitive Technologies group of companies, spoke about the dependence on foreign technology in this sector and the use of artificial intelligence at the Business Breakfast in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
How dependent are we on foreign technology?
Olga Uskova: The most important thing is that AI is life-critical, responsible for human life. This includes AI used for military purposes, transportation AI, including for aircraft, and solutions used in medicine. In this block, our company is one of the leading companies; We are officially in the top 5 in the world.
Russia has breakthrough solutions recognized by the international developer community. This includes software and hardware, as well as advanced sensors, transducers and neural processors. We were faced with the need for import substitution in 2012; Our company has gained competence in the implementation of unmanned vehicle management projects. First, we replaced imported radars: we created a team in Russia to produce sensors. Specialists of the highest level were found in Tomsk, which in the Soviet Union was considered the “radar capital”, and a strong “technological school” remained there. And as a result, this team became the main team that mass produced domestic radars.
A similar situation also happens with tiny cameras for robots. They are produced by two major developers in the world and both refuse to sell products to Russia. We first established a team in St. Petersburg, then began to develop his own team. And as a result, we have our own highly competitive products: glare-free cameras and 3D radars that provide three-dimensional images. In 2018, our radar won the world's best innovative solution at Tech.AD in Berlin, and the camera won the European award in 2022 as the world's most professional micro camera.
There are no restrictions on import substitution of electronics – we have a good technical school. The building of mass production factories has been lost, but we are coming back to it.
We have no restrictions on import substitution of electronic equipment
Manufacturing neural processors is more difficult. Microelectronics issues are in the testing area. Our products contain processors from several countries. But we have tested domestic products and installed them on small-scale modules. Replicable ones will soon be produced in the country.
Deployment of AI across Russia is currently being discussed. Should I use it everywhere?
Olga Uskova: Our situation is quite difficult, we are in military competition between industrial blocks, we have a limited number of resources and people. It's important not to spread yourself too thin and not lie. If we are talking about general neural networks, then we do not need to talk about assistants that will entertain people, but about the teaching tool itself and about the creation of “basic engines” – tools that are limited in number in the world, and all this technological base is not produced in Russia. If this basic tool is no longer available, it will be difficult to modify and customize our products. The key point is to create a tooling platform for neural programming. It seems to me that these issues need to be widely discussed. What is important now is that Russia is not distracted by economically meaningless areas.
In June, the roadmap for establishing an electronics and unmanned technology industrial cluster in Tomsk was approved. The enterprises most ready for mass production were gathered there. And we are trying to bring this to the industrial level, so that forward contracts are signed and production orders are fulfilled.
Read the next part of “Business Breakfast” with Olga Uskova in the upcoming issue of “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”.
